The Contagious Crisis
Libertarians face charges these days that capitalism has failed or at least that deregulation has invited our current economic troubles. These charges are not persuasive. …
Less Light
The World Wildlife Fund urged people around the world to help save the planet by switching outdoor lighting off during Earth Hour on the evening …
Intensifier
Use of “incredible” or “incredibly” as a vogue word to mean “extreme” or “very” or even nothing at all is rampant. Much less familiar is …
Deceptive Vacuity
It is puzzling how seldom TV pundits expose the vacuity of “change” as a political platform. Everyone wants change of some sort or other, but …
A Curious Conversion
Many books tell a tragic story. This book is itself a tragedy. I eagerly bought Antony Flew’s account of his renouncing atheism, expecting an intellectual …
The Delusion of Competence
Several kinds of behavior fall into a pattern when we see them as examples of the delusion of competence. Political position, fame, celebrity, or supposed …
Iraq and a Hard Place
President Bush warned in his American Legion speech of August 31 and on other occasions that withdrawing from Iraq now would hand victory to America’s …
Draft Evasion: $10,000, Smoking Marijuana: $25,000, Living in a Civil Society: Priceless
Criminal penalties are not prices. Occasionally the idea surfaces that the schedule of penalties for felonies and misdemeanors is a price list. By implication, people …
An Incredible Vogue
the word in its sloppy, voguish sense. It and similar words (incredibly, unbelievable/bly, and, on Spanish-language TV, incredibly, unbelievable /bly) are widely used nowadays as …
Economics Disregarded
A reporter on a TV talk show asked Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta whether a 70-year-old white woman from Florida would receive the same level of …